Life, Today

Jesus, would you look at that idiot,
really, take a look at that sucker,
roll the window down nice and easy,
stick your head out and get a good look,
Jesus, pulls up right behind us,
a millimeter from the back bumper,
it’s fucking two in the morning, we’re
on a down slope at the light, he’s in
one of those ungodly four-wheel drive
minivans or some such shit, and he’s
got the high beams on, he’s laser
lighting us, the movie projector beam
slashes through the back window,
ricochets off the rear view mirror
and cuts into our eyes, the whole
car’s lighted up like some alien
spaceship is hovering above us,
more light than inside the newest
convenience store at the corner
of Mount Parnassas and Homer
Avenue, more light than your Father
puts out from his high holy throne,
Jesus, what is your world coming to,
they don’t care, they high beam
you everywhere, going down the
neighborhood streets, going down
the two lane blacktops, Jesus, it’s
not that they are mad, it’s not that
they are trying to do you in because
they got a grudge against the way
your Father made things, it’s just
that they fucking don’t acknowledge
a place for what’s beyond their own
special selves, Jesus, high beaming
you, everyone, always, the fuckers,
here and universal everywhere

Chuck Taylor was CETA poet in residence for Salt Lake City, operated Paperbacks Plus in Austin, and worked in the Poets-in-the-Schools Program. He went up the stairs in the downtown Dallas city jail on the same stairs Oswald descended just before he was killed by Jack Ruby, an act he saw on national television. This and other jail experiences appear in his book POET IN JAIL.